EDUCATION
Sioban Flanagan finds food for thought in
Oliver James’ new book Affluenza.
LEARNING TO BE HAPPY
Reading Oliver James’ new book Affluenza, I was
reminded of a regular scene in our house. My
12-year-old daughter is in tears. “I’ve got a test
tomorrow. I don’t understand any of it,” she
screams. After shouting and slamming her door,
she calms down enough to go through her
notes. The following day I ask her how the test
went and she just says “OK. I got a nine”.
“Wow, that’s brilliant! Well done!” I say,
before she finishes with “But I never get a ten!”
According to James, this obsession with
getting top marks has been a bad development,
which encourages people to think of education
in terms of work and consumption. To test
this idea, I asked my daughter why she was so
concerned about her tests. She looked at me as
if I was thick. “Well, if I don’t get good grades,
I won’t get into university. Then I probably
won’t get a good job and if I don’t have a good
job, I won’t be able to afford nice things like a
car and stuff.”
I was quite shocked, because I do not consider
myself a pushy parent. But James suggests
showing any interest in grades sends the message
27969_Unit07_p048-053 pp3.indd Sec1:51
that what is important is results and it leaves
students feeling failures even if they are very
bright. He points to the Danish system
of education as a better model. Creating
happy citizens who have good social skills is
seen as more important than high academic
achievement or the needs of business.
The strange thing is that so little of what
we learn at school is actually relevant to
most jobs. I cannot remember the last time I
had to calculate the area of a circle, recite
a Shakespeare poem or grammar rules. I
have lived a happy life, despite the fact I
have forgotten Boyle’s Law and the main
industry in Patagonia. What I really needed
to learn at school was how to make polite
conversation, or how to avoid getting into
debt, or how to control my own children!
To be fair, both the responsibilities of
parenthood and personal finances are now
sometimes taught as part of Personal, Social
and Health Education (PSHE), which also
covers areas such as citizenship and the abuse
of illegal drugs. Many EU countries also
teach citizenship as a core subject, although
not everyone agrees what it should aim to
teach. Norway includes lessons on respecting
nature. France aims to teach ‘republican
values’ – and some politicians have also
talked of teaching students to appreciate the
importance of wine in French culture.
Such ideas are not really what Oliver
James has in mind, though. He seems to
be looking for schools where students are
encouraged to find and follow their own
interests, something more like Tongjon. Tongjon
has been developed in some Korean private
schools as an alternative to the more rigid
system of learning things by heart that is
used in Korea, and indeed in many other
school systems around the world. The irony
of this is that Tongjon is now seen by some
as answering economic needs. It is thought
that schooling which gives students more
freedom will provide more of the creative
and innovative thinkers the future Korean
economy needs.
As the Russian poet Pushkin said,
“Inspiration is needed in geometry just as
much as in poetry”, and inspiration does
not come from endlessly revising for tests or
getting upset about them.
2/10/09 6:17:38 PM